Hi again,
I have found myself with surplus time this morning, whilst the sun rises to somehow scorch the Earth so that the air feels oh-so-much hotter than the 38 degrees forecast. That is to say, there’s no way I can leave my room and its fan.
This morning I was promised a look at the tombs of the ancestors, my great grandmother, her mother and her mother’s mother. This was situated at the base of the hill (mountain?) and looked like half of a tiny Roman arena made of concrete. I was told that in the village it was customary to bury the bodies of the dead for three years before digging the bones back up, cleaning off the excess flesh by hand and placing them into a jar. Three jars of clean bones, therefore, lay behind the three inscribed faces of the tomb that I faced. I was told that it was important that the bones be buried somewhere with the appropriate Feng Sui, also an important factor to consider when building the house. Norman told me that (on the Hou house?) a relative covered the cobblestones set outside the back of the house with concrete once (destroying the houses ‘chi’ – air) and collapsed dead in the field the next day.
“A coincidence it may be.” He said, in a manner that suggested that he believed it was anything but.
I asked him if he fixed his house in Perth in the same way since he believes in the mysterious forces of Feng Sui and he replied “no, no it is a different environment”. His answer was phrased almost exactly the same as when I asked him what he thought of his children marrying foreigners, and left me musing about the flexibility of the Chinese.
This flexibility, I realised later in the day, even opens the Chinese lineage to strangers. For although the Chinese are sometimes known for their questionable beliefs on race, adopted sons sired children who remain as much of the clan as those belonging to those from a direct bloodline. Perhaps this is why my existence was accepted easily, I mused, for ‘blood’ is not ‘blood’ in the Western sense of the word, where genetics play such a large part of ‘belonging’. Instead I carry the name and therefore belong, I am ‘blood’ in this sense. Ironically I think that Western people (hi brexit) could learn a thing or two from this logic of belonging, for although it is necessarily exclusionary, it opens us up to the possibilities of accepting strangers, should they be assigned to our neighbourhoods.
Next I went to the market and, as i’m sure you know, it was chaos.
“This is not as busy as usual, normally you cannot move” my Uncle said.
I nodded understandingly, my eye twitching slightly as I jumped to avoid a motorbike. Thankfully nothing was being slaughtered anywhere thanks to a new law that required all animals to be sent to the local abbatoir. In fact I thought all the animals looked rather comfortable, perched in their cages hanging around lazily in the shade.
I think we are going to have to agree to disagree about the steak, and bond over our consensus on the hot pot. Which reminds me, it turns out the rice I have been eating comes from ‘our’ front garden, from field to plate in exactly the amount of time it takes to process it. Also on the menu today were stir fried bamboo shoots , which I had watched my other ‘uncle’ Qu Ping, kick out of the earth on our way back from the tomb. And the waitresses? Who knows, my Uncle only explained that they were excited.
Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to partake in the fun and games I saw. Everything was pint sized, and even my gangly figure might have become lodged in various areas. Not to mention my healthy adult weight which might have crushed at least three children at once in the ball pit. My aim into the pee hole was extraordinary, I have had a lot of practice trekking amongst Namibia’s canyons.
To a future of simplified and uncomplicated love,
Kirsten
A little bit of a Hou 